The Royal Ballet welcomes five dancers to the Company for the 2015/16 Season as part of the Aud Jebsen Young Dancers Programme. The programme provides an opportunity for recently graduated dancers to receive a year’s contract to work alongside the corps de ballet of The Royal Ballet. In addition the dancers are offered mentoring and coaching and have the opportunity to perform with the Company. Next Season’s Aud Jebsen Young Dancers are Isabel Lubach, Julia Roscoe, Lukas Bjørneboe Brændsrød, Harry Churches and Leo Dixon, all from The Royal Ballet School. Julian MacKay joins the Company as Prix de Lausanne Dancer for the 2015/16 Season.

Charlotte Edmonds will join The Royal Ballet for the 2015/16 Season as the first choreographer to participate in the new Royal Ballet Young Choreographer Programme mentored by Kevin O’Hare and Wayne McGregor. The Young Choreographer Programme is a 12-month position for an emerging choreographer to shadow Royal Ballet and visiting choreographers and utilize the Company resources to create work. Eighteen-year-old Edmonds choreographed the short film The Indifferent Beak for The Royal Ballet as part of Deloitte Ignite 2014 and is currently studying for a BA at the Rambert School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance. She trained at The Royal Ballet School and was a finalist in the Ninette de Valois Junior Choreographic competition for three consecutive years. She also won the Kenneth MacMillan Senior Choreographic Competition in 2011 and 2012.

The Royal Ballet welcomes five dancers to the Company for the 2014/15 Season as part of the new Aud Jebsen Young Dancers Programme. The programme provides an opportunity for up to six recently graduated dancers to receive a year’s contract to work alongside the corps de ballet of The Royal Ballet. In addition the dancers will be offered mentoring and coaching and have the opportunity to perform with the Company. This year’s Aud Jebsen Young Dancers are Grace Blundell and Grace Horler, both from The Royal Ballet School, Ashley Scott and Ashleigh McKimmie from English National Ballet School and Maria Barroso from Semperoper Ballet, Dresden.

David Navarro Yudes joins the Company as a Prix de Lausanne Dancer for the 2014/15 Season.

Soloist Iohna Loots left the Company mid-season, and Soloist Kenta Kura retires from the Company after 17 years to take up a new appointment as Boys’ Artistic Teacher at White Lodge, the Royal Ballet Junior School. Kenta is a graduate of The Royal Ballet School's Professional Dancer’s Teachers Course (PDTC).

First Artist Leanne Cope will take a sabbatical for the 2014/15 Season to play the part of Lise Dassin in An American in Paris, directed and choreographed by Christopher Wheeldon, Artistic Associate of The Royal Ballet. An American in Paris receives its world premiere in December at the Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris and transfers to Broadway in spring 2015.

Natalia Osipova first danced with The Royal Ballet as a Guest Artist in October 2012, giving three performances of Swan Lake partnered by Carlos Acosta. She joined the Company as Principal in November 2013, making her debut in Romeo and Juliet, again partnered by Carlos.

Soloist Iohna Loots retired in 2014, while Dawid Trzensimiech left the Company in February 2014 to join the Romanian National Ballet. Soloist David Pickering, who was appointed Education Administrator for The Royal Ballet in 2008/9 Season, retired from dancing in 2014 but continues in his role as Education Administrator.

Reece Clarke and Gina Storm-Jensen, both pupils of The Royal Ballet Upper School, will be joining The Royal Ballet as Artists on Monday 28 October.

‘I am delighted to welcome Reece and Gina to The Royal Ballet,’ says Kevin O’Hare, Director of The Royal Ballet. ‘Over the past year we have taken seven students from The Royal Ballet School into the Company and this is testament to the close relationship between the Company and school. We look forward to watching them develop in their careers as professional dancers over the forthcoming seasons.’

Gina Storm-Jensen from Norway initially studied with the Norwegian National Ballet School in Oslo. She was a finalist in the Prix de Lausanne 2011, before going on to study with The Royal Ballet School. She was recently awarded the Gailene Stock Prize for Most Promising Student 2013. Watch her perform a classical selection from the Prix de Lausanne:

Annette Buvoli and David Donnelly will join as Artists from The Royal Ballet School, with Masaya Yamamoto joining the Company as a Prix de Lausanne dancer. Anna Rose O’Sullivan, Luca Acri and Marcelino Sambé joined as Artists during the 2012/2013 Season.

Royal Ballet School graduates Anna Rose O'Sullivan and Marcelino Sambé have joined The Royal Ballet.

The latest graduates of the school to join The Royal Ballet, both dancers become Artists and willenter the Company in December 2012.

Harrow-born Anna Rose trained locally from age 5, becoming a Royal Ballet School Junior Associate before successfully auditioning for the Lower School, White Lodge in 2005. She has won several awards whilse attending the School including in 2011 winning The Royal Ballet School Achievement Award, second place at the Lynn Seymour Award for Expressive Dance and the Director’s Prize for most promising student. In the same year, she was also named Young British Dancer of the Year. In April 2013, Anna Rose will accompany students of The Royal Ballet School to perform at the Palais Garnier in Paris in a Gala to celebrate the tercentenary of the Paris Opera Ballet School.

Portuguese-born Marcelino’s early training was at the National Conservatoire in Lisbon. His successes include junior division gold medals at the Youth America Grand Prix 2009 and at the USA International Ballet Competition 2010. At the Prix de Lausanne in 2010, he was awarded a Scholarship to join The Royal Ballet Upper School, receiving further support from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. His entry for the 2011 Ursula Moreton Choreographic Award - N’ca cré sabi - won second prize and went on to be performed at The Royal Ballet School’s end-of-year season at the Linbury Studio Theatre in July 2011. The piece will be performed at the The Canadian National Ballet School’s Assemblée Internationale in Toronto in April 2013.

Details of Royal Ballet promotions, leavers and joiners for next season have been announced.

The 2012/13 season will see promotions to First Soloist for Alexander Campbell and Ryoichi Hirano; to Soloist for Beatriz Stix-Brunell, Claire Calvert, James Hay, Dawid Trzensimiech and Valentino Zucchetti; and to First Artist for Meaghan Grace Hinkis, Fumi Kaneko and Yasmine Naghdi.

Tamara Rojo will leave the company to take up the Directorship of English National Ballet. First Soloist José Martin and Artists Celisa Diuana and Aaron Smyth also depart as well as Ballet Mistress Ursula Hageli and Physiotherapist Daryl Martin. The company said goodbye to Principals Sergei Polunin and David Makhateli as well as First Artist Francesca Filpi during the course of the season.

We filmed an interview with Claire Calvert who gave us her reaction to the news of her promotion, as well as telling us about her career highlights to date and what she's looking forward to in the future:

]]>7Rosie Neavehttp://www.roh.org.uk/?p=59342014-05-19T15:59:02Z2011-09-22T11:13:10ZWith the beginning of the 2011/12 Royal Ballet season, a few changes within the company have taken place.

Promotions

The Royal Ballet’s Akane Takada and Emma Maguire have been promoted to Soloists in the recent Company promotions. Akane Takada, 21 from Japan, joined The Royal Ballet in 2008 as a Prix de Lausanne Dancer and was promoted to First Artist in June 2010. Emma Maguire, 28 from Leeds, joined The Royal Ballet in 2002 and her promotion comes after critically acclaimed performances over the course of last Season.

Joiners

During the 2010/11 Season, Royal Ballet School graduate Francesca Hayward and Fumi Kaneko joined The Royal Ballet as Artists. Joining the Company for the new season are Soloist Alexander Campbell who joins from Birmingham Royal Ballet and Artists Claudia Dean and Tomas Mock (both graduates from The Royal Ballet School) and Meaghan Grace Hinkis from American Ballet Theatre.

Leavers

The Royal Ballet bids farewell to Soloist Bethany Keating, First Artist Vanessa Fenton and Artist James Butcher.